[Correspondence] Corticosteroid therapy for pneumonia

September 12, 2015

The Lancet 386, 9997 (2015)

Author: Ar Kar Aung, Philip J Thompson, Harry Gibbs, Denis W Spelman

We read Claudine Blum and colleagues’ study (April 18, p 1511)1 with interest. We are concerned that selection bias might have occurred during recruitment, leading to a study population with relatively mild-to-moderate community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), which might not show the true benefits and disadvantages of corticosteroid treatment and could exclude a subpopulation who might benefit greatly from corticosteroids. The investigators did not discuss the low rate of recruitment (in 4·5 years and seven tertiary hospitals only 802 [27%] of 2911 identified patients were recruited).